Quiet Life Homestead

Friday Evening

Our DSL has been out since Thursday morning and we finally got it working, who knows for how long.  So I thought I'd post a quick entry.

I've been inputing the kids schoolwork plan on my Homeschool Tracker.  Its kinda time consuming (okay, very), but it sure helps much better (in my experience) than the CLASS planner.  They are both CD-ROMS that I received (for free) from subscribing to Old Schoolhouse Magazine.  What I like about Homeschool Tracker is they figure the grades and keep tallies of how much time was spent in each subject.  Here in Oklahoma, we don't really have to worry about either, but I enjoy seeing the results of it.

Its been VERY cold here the past two days.  Tomorrow morning and Sunday morning we're suposed to have "record lows."  I don't much like the sound of that!  Here I was thinking we'd be able to reduce our electric bill this month.  The heat's on but I'm trying to keep it around 65.

I'm trying to find ways of cutting costs around here.  Also the kids and I are trying to think of something we can do to make a little extra money.  Bethany and I may work harder trying to get some quilts finished.  We could also see about making other items for sale, but that's all hard to sell unless you want to sit in a booth at a craft show.  I'm going to be praying about it and see what God leads us to do.  The boys have been talking about doing more leatherwork (wallets, checkbooks, belts, etc) but we have the same problem with that.  We've tried putting things on e-bay but they charge to list even if you don't sell the item.  We're trying to find some way without having to spend extra money.  Deanna was talking about making up a flier to send to interested parties.  Maybe that's what we should do as well. 

I've decided to go ahead and take out all the stitching on the borders of my quilt.  I think it would look weird to have some machine quilting and some hand quilting on the same row.  But it doesn't seem so bad (taking out the stitches) because I'm doing it while the kids are reading their list books.  Lord willing I should have that finished no later than midway next week.

I purchased some dog food for Larken today.  We had purchased Royal Canin's Bulldog formula for her birthday (Feb 27) but she won't eat it.  I've been checking the recall lists and it isn't on there.  I guess she just doesn't like it.  Holly (the cat) likes Larken's food. :)  She only ate a couple of pieces, but her food was getting down as well so we picked up some food for her - Purina Naturals, I think.  Larken got Beneful, which she promptly cleared her bowl of.  I'll probably give the Royal Canin to Staci so she can give it to her "herd." :)

The Yankees are down 6-4 and getting ready to enter the 9th inning.  We lost yesterday. :(  The season's early and I'm sure we'll make it up.  It does feel good to have the sounds of the ballgame in the house.  Last year we had season tickets to our local team but there's no way we could afford it this year, its hard enough finding money for the housepayment.  We did have free tickets to tonight's and last night's games but as it was snowing, we thought we'd skip it.  No use getting sick!

I need to get back on task with entering the schoolwork.  Hopefully I'll be able to post tomorrow.

Vicki